There's a book called the Apostolic Imperative.
Don't get scared, I'm not going to read
it, probably just hold it up.
It was partially an inspiration for these days,
although I disagree with this eminent Lutheran theologian
in a few places, but considering all, the
very title itself is worth the price, and
that it's written by a Lutheran theologian called
Bratton is a statement that something is indeed
stirring.
On a chapter entitled The Apostolic Foundations of
Ministry, here's how he begins.
The precarious state of the ministry today.
The promise of renewal of the Church's mission
depends on the recovery of the apostolic ministry
in the Church today.
Can you believe that?
And then every Church denomination and sect has
laid claim to a ministry which in all
essentials is apostolic.
They all profess that their ministries stand in
apostolic succession.
That is because every kind of Christian community
lives or dies by its ability to transmit
the true apostolic stuff, whatever that is.
So whatever that is, is what we have
been seeking to speak about in these weeks,
but that this kind of acknowledgment is impinging
and touching upon the consciousness of men in
ivy-towered places is a remarkable statement of
the recognition that is coming to them of
their great need.
So the apostolic imperative is what we've been
talking about.
For example, what is the apostolic imperative of
the Church toward Israel?
To move them to jealousy and that by
your mercy they might know mercy.
What's the apostolic imperative of the Church toward
the principalities and the powers?
To unseat them and to reveal the fraudulent
thing that they are and one day to
displace them in the governmental realm.
Hey, we've got quite an agenda, no light
task on the things that are apostolic.
So if that's the apostolic imperative, what is
the apostolic fulfillment?
That's what your pastor is going to speak
about for three weeks.
And I want to take a little shot
at it tonight.
I want
to begin by taking a look at a
statement in the book of Hebrews in the
third chapter and maybe going through Hebrews a
little bit to express what the Lord has
put on my heart.
The authorship of Hebrews is disputed by the
scholars.
I like to believe that Paul is that
author.
If it proves to be another, it's a
man of the same apostolic timber, the same
apprehension and awareness of all that was in
Paul's deepest spirit.
I like to believe that Paul is the
essential apostle and what is apostolic is the
picture of the foundation that God intends for
the Church and the totality of the Church.
Chapter 3 of Hebrews begins, Therefore, holy brethren
who share in a heavenly call, consider Jesus
the apostle and high priest of our confession.
So I want to speak tonight about the
conjunction of two words, apostolic and priestly.
Jesus is the apostle and the high priest
of our confession and we are to consider
him in both things.
I want to say by faith that these
two terms are inextricably linked.
You can no more attain to the thing
that is apostolic independent of what is priestly
than you can be priestly without touching the
thing that is apostolic.
They are forever linked in the wisdom of
God.
These two great things, whatever they mean or
whatever that stuff is that Carl Brattain refers
to that I've quoted, this priestliness is a
lost thing to the consciousness of modern saints.
The only time we ever think of it
or hear of it is somehow when we
hear a teaching about Aaronic priesthood or Old
Testament priesthood or the nomenclature of priesthood or
what they wore or what they did or
the tabernacle in some kind of historic description.
It's like a piece of antiquity.
It's something ancient and somehow unrelated to the
things that make up our life.
But there's a sense in which priestliness can
be understood that is remarkably relevant.
It's unchanging and it's eternal and it's heavenly.
It's the kind of priest that Jesus is
that makes him the high apostle, the high
priest and the apostle of our confession.
And if it makes him to the same
degree, it makes us.
If we have an apostolic intention, we need
also to have a priestly consideration.
So I just want to review some things
that pertain to the priesthood of Jesus because
it pertains also to us who have a
heavenly calling, holy brethren.
How do you like them apples?
I like that kind of talk.
And it's not just apostolic rhetoric.
It's not just a kind of fanciful coining
of words.
Every single syllable of the word holy, of
the word calling, of the word heavenly is
fully intentioned by God.
And we need to receive that into our
deepest consciousness.
We have a heavenly calling, holy brethren, to
be apostolic and to be priestly.
And for that, we're going to receive heavenly
assistance.
So I could take you on an excursion
through Hebrews just to develop that a bit.
And I'm just concerned about the time, about
entering the rest of God.
Chapter 4, verse 3, For we who have
believed enter that rest.
There's a whole discussion here about the failure
of Israel to enter the rest of God
because of their disobedience and because of their
unbelief.
But we are enjoined and warned by their
failure, ourselves, to enter by faith into the
rest that God has promised to the people
of God.
So verse 9 says, So then there remains
a Sabbath rest for the people of God,
for whoever enters God's rest also ceases from
his labors as God did from his.
And that's why the pastor had to say
tonight, I don't know what these three weeks
are going to be.
I've been touched by this evident waiting on
God, coming up weak and not laden with
notes and feeling your way through by the
presence of God for the thing that he
wants delivered.
To enter that rest, it's an ironic thing,
but I can say with certitude and with
authority that the tumultuous conditions that the church
will face at the end of the age
where our acts will be as significant as
was the book of Acts that described the
church in its inception, our acts in the
conclusion will be every bit as fraught with
significance as it was at the beginning, if
not more so.
And yet as hectic and tumultuous as that
action is going to be, it needs to
flow out of the rest of God, not
out of our anxiety, not out of our
apprehensiveness or nervousness, or what should we do,
or should we be doing, or we have
an obligation, but out, it's a paradox, it's
an apostolic paradox that out of the rest
of God alone and only will come the
most potent and dynamic apostolic acts at the
conclusion of the age.
So entering the rest in which Israel failed
is an enormous mandate that is before us.
Or else we come unglued.
Or else we're jerked by every kind of
cause, every kind of seeming good thing in
which we ought to participate.
But to be able to rest and to
be moved only by the Spirit of God
in his time and for his purpose is
the place where a whole church must come.
For whoever enters God's rest also ceases from
his labors as God did from his.
Let us therefore, in verse 11, strive to
enter that rest in that remarkable play on
words.
Somehow it's not going to come by itself.
That kind of rest is not just leaning
back in some kind of passivity.
There's an apostolic fervency and a passion of
concern to come into it or else we'll
not obtain it.
And verse 14, since then we have a
high priest who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus the Son of God, let us hold
fast our confession.
For we have not a high priest who
is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses and
so on, but who is tempted in every
way yet without sin.
Let us then with confidence draw near to
the throne of grace that we may receive
mercy and find grace to help in time
of need.
And I would do flip-flops.
I don't know what I would do right
now.
Turn myself inside out.
If I could convince you that that is
not some kind of formula, that that's not
kind of a sleepy incantation, that's not just
a familiar verse that we've heard, but it's
a prescription for life-and-death necessity in
ultimate moments of extremity to find grace to
help in time of need.
Where am I going to find it when
I walk the five flights up to that
brother's door on December 14th and 15th and
knock and open and have a word for
him and counsel and wisdom and direction that
involves this man's life and the congregation that
is joined with him, where the issues of
life and death are actually at stake, where
men can disappear and not be seen again,
where they can be thrown into a dungeon
and be lost, or be beaten or what?
What kind of wisdom?
How shall I prepare?
What shall I say?
And how shall we receive it?
If you feel that you have a problem,
how do we walk out these 12 weeks?
What shall he think in terms of the
radical things that God might have to say,
living on the razor's edge as they do?
We need to be able to draw near
the throne of grace, that we might receive
mercy, because if we don't receive it, how
shall we obtain it from us and find
grace to help in time of need?
And these times will be increased and become
more radically urgent as we go on.
So if we don't know how to enter,
if we don't know how to draw near,
if we don't have a faith that enters
and a faith that can draw near and
into the heavenly place, if this for us
is just a kind of palaver, a rhetoric,
an empty kind of talk that is not
for us a specific key that can be
actualized, and there's an actual entry by faith,
we're not going to find help.
So there's so many words about confidence, about
assurance, in verse 11 of chapter 6, and
we desire each one of you to show
the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance
of hope until the end, so that you
may not be sluggish, but imitators of those
who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Our problem is that we've heard so much
that we've not heard.
Our problem is that these words have become
so familiar that their value has been lost
to us, that there's something actual to be
inherited, that there's something to be endured unto
the end, that there's a holding fast, there's
having a full assurance that God really means,
but for us has been only, what shall
I say, ceremonial, sermonizing words rather than an
injunction that spurs us to believe for that
in reality.
Verse 17 talks about the promise, the heirs
of promise, and verse 19, we have thus
this as a sure and steadfast anchor of
the soul, a hope that enters into the
inner shrine behind the curtain where Jesus has
gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having
become a high priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek.
Here's where we freak out.
Here's where we flip out.
Here's where it becomes so abstract, so obtuse,
the references seem so remote that we drift
away.
I hope that's not happening to you tonight
because before this night is over, I'm going
to put before you a charge and a
challenge to actually enter into a place that
has been prepared for us beforehand by a
high priest who has gone before and who
has made a way of entry through his
own blood and by the rending of the
veil, by the tearing of his own flesh,
once and for all.
Does that mean us?
And that this place is the place of
faith, that it is the place out of
which God would have his end-time saints
to live and move and have their being.
It is the place of apostolic authority.
It is the place from which we will
draw our inspiration and find grace to help
in time of need.
But it's a place in the heavenlies and
yet we have a heavenly calling and yet
we're told that we can enter by faith,
that we can have a confidence in this
hope and an assurance until the end.
Either God is playing a game with us
and is just verbalizing and titillating us with
abstract terminology or he is meaning something so
actual and so obtainable only by faith that
if we verbalize this away, we have lost
the key to the fulfillment of the apostolic
imperative.
Namely, to move and live and have our
being out of that heavenly place by faith
within the veil.
It's a hope that enters into the inner
place.
So do you have a faith that takes
hold?
Do you have a faith that's confident?
Do you have a hope that can enter?
They did not enter the rest.
When God says enter, he means something very
actual.
It's not just an illusion.
It's not a metaphor.
It's not just a suggestion.
He's talking about a concrete, actual entry in
a spiritual place by faith.
And the issue for us tonight is have
we moved from faith to faith by the
ministries that have come to us, by the
five-fold ministries, through the word, through our
obedience to God and the things that he's
shown us and our walk thus far, that
we can actually enter by that faith into
the place that God has prepared for us
and, in fact, in which he bids us
enter, as Jesus himself did by virtue of
his own blood and by the rending of
the veil through the piercing of his own
flesh.
And he entered as the Melchizedek High Priest,
a new priesthood, a change.
The Aaronic Order was abolished when that veil
was rent in the crucifixion of Jesus.
It was not just God just drawing something
to the attention of a religious system that
had a poet and crucified the one whom
he sent, but he was marking an end,
finish, to a whole ecclesiastical and political thing
that had moved so far from God as
to fail to recognize him whom he had
sent and had crucified him.
But in the moment that he had given
up the ghost, the veil was rent from
top to bottom.
It was God's work.
And it was the veil that had covered
the holiest place of all, behind which only
the High Priest was allowed in but once
a year, and that was the blood of
calves and bulls.
And when that veil was rent, God was
saying, that priesthood is finished.
That blood is no longer valid with the
shedding of this blood and with the rending
of this flesh.
Another veil has been parted of which the
earthly type is finished for it was only
a shadow ever and to begin with, to
point to the one that is eternal and
in the heavens and which this one whom
you have crucified is now going to enter,
not with the blood of calves and bulls,
but with his own blood as a High
Priest in the order of Melchizedek forever, once
and for all.
My God!
If God is not speaking by his Spirit,
if these are just words, if this is
not finding a place in our spirit, if
we're not laying hold of this, we're missing,
I don't have a word to describe what
we're missing, we're missing the consummation.
If we're just majoring on the atonement for
forgiveness of sins and think that that's the
whole of what was served in the crucifixion
of Jesus and the shedding of his blood
and his ascension on high, we're missing the
most powerful and eternal continuing thing that has
been made available to us who believe and
who can enter that reality by faith.
There's no other way to fulfill the apostolic
imperative except from that place.
You're doomed to frustration and to defeat and
maybe even to the rejection of the faith
that you say cannot work, that God has
put before us, apostolic charge and mandate of
the most radical kind and when we sought
to walk it out, we collapsed and we
failed because we didn't walk it out from
the place from which God alone intended that
we should, from within the veil, from the
holiest place of all, from the holiest of
holy, from the mercy seat, from between the
wings of the cherubim, from where his shechina,
glory and presence is.
Guys, I'm not a whooping.
If you believe me for ten weeks, believe
me tonight, I'm almost willing to forsake the
ten previous weeks if you but believe this.
And faith comes by hearing and hearing by
the word of God.
I want to see your incredulity dissipate away,
like your eyes begin to get more intense,
like, hey, is God really meaning this?
That this is not metaphor, this is not
some just liberal use of words, that there's
an actual heavenly place that I might enter
in the realm of spirit by faith which
is the locus and source of my life,
my animation, my energy, my wisdom, my instruction,
my power, even while I'm yet on the
earth?
Yes, there is.
I just finished an assignment for one of
my classes and blew the lid off.
I was low man on the totem pole.
I didn't have the advantages of Greek and
Hebrew and had to sit there with very
bright seminarians whose Hebrew was better than mine,
being Jewish.
And remarkable word studies week after week of
such an esoteric kind where every nuance was
weighed and calculated.
And so finally I had to give my
piece on the final week of that class,
and my assignment was a critique and an
examination of the speech of Stephen that culminated
in his martyrdom.
And I relished the opportunity, not because I
have the tools to do an analytical word
study, but I wanted to probe by the
Spirit of God, why is it that this
historic recitation, you're all familiar with Acts 7,
where he reviews from Abraham the whole history
of Israel going into Egypt and Joseph and
so on.
And then at a certain point he breaks
off and he says, as your father did
so do you also.
You do always grieve the Holy Spirit.
And at a certain statement, at a certain
moment, they rush upon him.
They put their fingers in their ears.
They couldn't hear it.
They didn't hear it when he said, oh,
he said I see the heavens opened.
And Jesus standing at the right hand of
the Father.
And when they heard that, they fell into
such a rage and fury and fell upon
him and dragged him out of the city
and stoned him to death.
And I never understood why, with that statement,
men should be moved to such a fury
until now.
And I'll tell you why.
Because the powers of the air that had
ruled through a corrupt priesthood to jerk and
to manipulate a whole nation through the corruption
of men who were self-seeking and found
it necessary that one man should die for
the nation that is to say for their
system were in a certain moment brought to
realize that the one whom they crucified and
saw as the greatest threat to their religious
and political power had now gone from the
grave up into the heavens and was at
the right hand of the Father in the
high priestly place which in one fell swoop
forever marked a termination to their corrupt earthly
priestly rule.
And when they heard that they rushed upon
him and could not bear to hear the
revelation of Jesus in the heavenly place.
The powers were moved to a fury and
reacted in their characteristic violence because they knew
that their cause was lost and their priesthood
and their corrupt rule through it was terminated
for a new priesthood had been initiated through
the blood of Jesus and through that eternal
sacrifice Melchizedek, high priestliness that would be forever
thou art a priest forever it says in
Psalm 110 after the order of Melchizedek which
means for us a better hope through which
we draw near to God in verse 18
the Lord has sworn it says and will
not change his mind thou art a priest
forever and this makes Jesus the surety of
a better covenant so in verse 25 consequently
he is able for all time to save
those who draw near to God through him
since he always lives to make intercession for
them for it was fitting that we should
have such a high priest holy, blameless unstained,
separate from sinners exalted above the heavens he
has no need like those high priest to
offer sacrifices daily.
He has no need.
I could almost stop right there he's a
heavenly priest, he has no need it says
in another place if he were on the
earth he would not be a priest at
all and I'm saying these things not only
to note the distinction of Jesus but to
denote our distinction because if we are in
him if we are if he has brought
many sons to glory and that he has
attained his priestly role by virtue of his
sonship, what does that mean for us?
That we have entered into that heavenly place
through him and with him also in the
character of this Melchizedek priesthood.
So we have it says in chapter 8
the first verse such a high priest, one
who is seated at the right hand of
the throne of majesty in heaven a minister
in the sanctuary and the true tent which
is set up not by man but by
the Lord and then it goes on to
say in verse 4 now if you are
on earth you would not be a priest
at all and yet is that to say
that that heavenly priestliness has no consequence for
the earth it has every consequence and significance
in chapter 9 verse 11 but when Christ
appears a high priest of the good things
to come then through the greater and more
perfect tent not made with hands that is
not of this creation he entered once and
for all into the holy place not taking
the blood of goats and calves but his
own blood he entered once and for all.
You say that's Jesus what right have I
to enter and yet the scripture says enter
and find help in time of need how
can I enter I don't have the qualifications
of Jesus I'm not that blameless and unstained
and separated from sinners but God did you
enter not on the basis of your own
virtue or even your own track record or
qualification but on the basis of his shed
blood he entered once and for all and
one of the questions that's before us tonight
is do we have the faith to believe
in the value of that blood as the
father esteems it because that blood was so
precious in the father's sight it made an
entry once and for all into the holiest
place of all in the heavens behind the
veil and we are invited to enter also
not on the basis of our virtue but
on the basis of his blood.
You see how the blood has an application
and meaning beyond the issue of atonement that
few saints have seen or understood chapter 10
verse 19 therefore brethren since we have confidence
to enter the sanctuary by the blood of
Jesus not our own virtue by the new
and living way which he opened for us
through the veil that is through his flesh
and since we have a great priest over
the house of God let us draw near
with a true heart in full assurance of
faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an
evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure
water let us hold fast the confession of
our hope without wavering for he who promised
is faithful can you enter on the basis
of that promise on the basis of that
invitation on the basis of that blood which
opened the way for us a new and
living way and if I took a poll
tonight to ask us how many of us
feel that our life now is essentially being
lived from that place that your decisions, your
inspiration your leadings, your strength your encouragement, your
boldness your spirituality, your discernment your sensitivity your
knowledge of and the love of God stems
from that place how many of us would
be able to say yes that's where I
essentially and consistently live my life and draw
my inspiration in Exodus 25 where the picture
of the tabernacle that was given Moses on
the mount which is the shadow of the
heavenly one speaks about the holiest place of
all and in it, in the holiest place
is only one piece of architecture it's the
mercy seat there's no lamp, there's no candelabra
there's no seven armed candelabra as is to
be found in the court that precedes it
there's only one thing and it's covered it's
not like the outer court that was open
to the sunlight where you could see even
naturally and discern certain things pertaining to sacrifice
and the issues of atonement, that was basic
stuff as you entered into the court compound
you could see the brazen altar and the
place of washing and you could see by
the light that was natural even the issues
pertaining to salvation but the issue is how
many believers have never gone beyond that place
are still fixed in the outer court, they're
outer court Christians who only know the issue
of salvation and that's what they talk about,
they never go beyond salvation and they have
no effectual consequence for the church or for
God in their generation and in the world,
they're still fixated at the issue of salvation,
fundamentalists to a great degree are described by
that but there's another court beyond that's called
the holy place and there there was an
incense burning which is a picture of the
Holy Spirit and the table of showbread and
the seven branched menorah to give a new
kind of light because now you're inside and
you're cut off from the natural light but
you had the light that was burning to
show you the issues of the kingdom and
the issues of the body of Christ, the
issues of the church and the incense altar
was a picture of the baptism of the
Holy Spirit by which you entered through that
veil and how many charismatics are fixed there
and never go beyond and the whole issue
for them is incense, is worship, is praises
choruses, satisfied with the terminology of the body
of Christ and the issues of church government
as if that's the ultimate end and if
we got that straight we got the whole
thing and not realizing there's yet one more
court there's yet one more court and it's
the holiest place of all and there only
one could enter in the year a high
priest for the other places there was much
scurrying of priestly activity, daily but in the
holiest place of all only the high priest
and that was blood of a blemishless sacrifice
taken into the holiest place of all behind
the veil no illumination no candle burning and
yet the place was ablaze with the most
brilliant light and illumination from what source?
From the presence of God himself who is
to be found between the wings of the
cherubim and by the mercy seat because he
said to Moses and there I will meet
with you above the place of mercy and
between the wings of the cherubim I will
meet with you and I will give you
all that pertains in command to the children
of Israel.
You know what I want to say tonight?
That's still God's prescription.
How do we fulfill the apostolic imperative?
How do we find the stratagems?
What do we do?
There's only one place where we're going to
find it.
It's going to be where he will meet
with us.
Behind the veil in the holiest place of
all in the place of his presence in
the place of his shekinah glory for those
who have entered in by faith by the
blood of Jesus once and for all and
who consciously live there consciously have their being
there consciously wait on God there are not
distracted by jarring invisible things wait for the
presence of God wait for the inspiration meet
him there there I will meet with you.
I want to say the apostolic imperative okay
what's the apostolic fulfillment?
Fellowship with God in the holiest place of
all communion with him there I will meet
with you it's not that we just get
together and I give you a few things
that you can say and do but out
of union out of loving fellowship out of
intimacy in the holiest place of all where
my presence is I will meet with you
and I will give you all.
That's the difference between the demonstrations of power
that will be the marks of false apostles
and false prophets and false miracles and lying
signs and wonders all kinds of demonstrations by
those who do not know him depart from
me you workers of iniquity for I never
knew you didn't we do great things in
your name?
but I never knew you what you did
was by the employment of my name or
by a more yet devious source but it
did not flow out of the union with
me out of communion out of the knowledge
of me in the intimate place behind the
veil in the holiest place of all guys
God didn't give us a mandate that we
were going to fulfill outside of him he
is the high priest and the apostle of
our confession he's entered a very precious and
heavenly place and he wants his church to
have his whole life its conduct its acts
emanate from that place and he's entered before
us once and for all don't let a
spiritual inferiority complex keep you out that you
don't that you're not qualified God is not
looking at your qualification he's looking only at
his son's blood therefore don't throw away your
confidence he who is promised is faithful let
us hold fast the confession of our hope
without wavering so I want to say tonight
that there needs to be a new apprehension
of the greatness of Christ a new understanding
of the fullness of what was worth in
his death and the shedding of his blood
it needs to come to us as an
inward revelation and something that needs to be
held in our deepest consciousness that this is
not some fanciful illusion but something glorious that
God has made available for the saints and
this is the kind of thing that will
save us from our hang ups from our
self consciousness its deliverance from everything in us
that has been sickly in which we have
looked to ourselves looked to our failures when
you come into that presence when the high
priest comes in he doesn't come in with
the consciousness of himself he's melted in the
consciousness of him before whom he stands there's
a place for us that is so remarkable
for those who can enter by faith there
I will meet with you and give you
all exodus the 25th chapter yet I want
to say that I'm not describing some clinical
thing or a technique or a method of
how to do it this is for lovers
this is for those who come into his
presence this is meeting God intimately in the
only place where he can be met in
the holiest place this is devotional and I
want to say just a word about devotion
in conclusion because God is really dealing with
me in this very area where I was
deceived the Lord has shown me and where
I thought that my zeal for his kingdom
or my zeal for his purposes is tantamount
to or the same as a love for
and a devotion for him it's not you
can be carried away by a religious zeal
and have very little to do with the
person of Jesus himself in fact what the
Lord showed me was that in a way
much more deeply than I recognized I was
yet so inherently Jewish that there was something
monotheistic in my soul that was repelling the
son of God as being a kind of
Johnny come lately I was acknowledging him technically
but I was not making a place for
him devotionally as the very incarnation of God
in his humanity that was the basis for
union and for relationship and I was conveying
in my own household an abstract God a
God of requirement or an ethical God but
not the palpitating living God in his humaneness
and my own humanity I've been majoring in
the gospel since that time in these very
weeks drawing close to the son of God
coming to know him sensing his person this
is a call for not clinical detachment this
is not another methodology of panacea a key
of how to do it the whole thing
is predicated on union and fellowship and the
intimate knowledge of him there I will meet
with you and give you all that pertains
to the sons of Israel so just to
read a few things from a precious word
on devotion which is described by this writer
as the blending of vehement passionate zeal with
love of abandonment and worship and adoration devotion
to Christ is the basis upon which end
time privileges are bestowed it's to these that
God will grant power and authority in a
way because they can be trusted because he
knows them because it's not going to be
abused or misused because this is to lovers
who are jealous of his glory and for
his honor there are things that are reserved
for those who love him that will never
be shown let alone given to those who
barge in and think that by a formula
or a technique or a method that they're
going to have a key to the kingdom
devotion means sacrifice consecration that is not cold
and legal it's not the abandonment that comes
through pressure or the yieldedness that follows severe
chastening we've all experienced that but that does
not in itself constitute devotion devotion is glad
joyous delight in the will of God be
it pain or pressure humbling or exulting it
is the wealth of heart love poured out
at the master's feet devotion to Christ is
the basis upon which end time privilege is
bestowed because God's nature is to give those
who have moved him by the ardent quality
of their love and their devotion so God
has offered us a place by which we
can fellowship with him in that way and
it needs to come into our faith into
our consciousness we need to see ourselves in
that place entering it by faith, remaining there
abiding, holding fast, being steadfast, confident, unwavering do
you believe that?
that there's a place it's the place where
he will meet with us and there I
will give you things that pertain to the
sons of Israel, to the church commandments inspiration,
encouragement strength that we might fulfill the apostolic
imperative I want to end by giving you
an invitation tonight to actually enter to enter
by faith I remember how God showed us
in the community a few years ago this
critical thing I was listening to some brother's
tapes in bed I had the tape recorder
on my chest and my bible in my
hand and I was clicking on and off
watching the scriptures as he was going through
it and something was building in my spirit.
I had lived a Christian life of extraordinary
zeal and intensity and I would go for
God where angels fear to tread and yet
I knew that it was a critical area
in which something was missing in my life
and my relationship with the Lord and this
brother was speaking about entering behind the veil
into the holiest place of all and at
a certain point I just kind of clicked
off the tape recorder and closed my bible
and I said this is by the blood
of Jesus.
I thought in some Jewish way it had
to be with my qualification I thought it
had to wait until I reached a certain
pinnacle of maturity.
A certain track record of accomplishment that I
would then be granted the honor that the
Lord says enter.
Enter freely he bids us enter because one
has gone before us who has entered once
and for all on the basis of his
blood and I just prayed a little prayer.
I said Lord on the basis of the
blood of Jesus and what you say in
your word I want to enter that place
of rest.
I want to come into that holy place.
I want to live my life and serve
you out of that place in Jesus name.
Just a small click and a certain peace
followed and I came that next morning to
our community prayer meeting I could hardly contain
myself and I shared that with our fellowship
and I think like the spirit of God
just swept us.
We all stood and prayed I enter.
Hold fast the concession of your faith.
You know what I had them do?
I had them confess I am entering behind
the veil into the holiest place of all
by the blood of Jesus and by the
veil that was rent by his flesh and
people entered and I want God wants to
give us an opportunity tonight to enter I
want you to take inventory of your faith
and enter by faith this is not a
metaphor, this is not a play on words
God is wanting an actual entry and it's
available tonight and it's only out of that
place you're going to fulfill God's precious requirement
and make his glory known so precious God
I just thank you Jesus.
Thank you my God for how far you'll
go in order to obtain this how far
you're going with me and so allowing my
life to be moved upon in such a
way as to threaten marriage and to and
you're doing this with many, you're shaking families,
you're shaking ministries you're shaking men and women
whose marriages have been idolatrous whose eyes have
not been filled fully upon you who have
not been into that quality of devotion in
their relationship with you and yet have used
the word Lord Lord, you'll go that far
to bring us into that place that devotion,
that love that intimacy.
Look upon us tonight Lord and even allow
the word that has come as a word
sent given to create faith, to believe that
indeed there's a new way that has been
opened to us that we don't have to
live our life outside of that holiest place
out of a mere mechanical and religious determination
to be good or do good you put
so much more before us in these days
than we could than we could ever fulfill
out of religious intention only from that place
there where you will meet with us and
so I ask you to hear my God
and to receive into that place everyone tonight
who desires it and who will enter it
by faith confessing that by the blood of
Jesus I enter in once and for all
to the holiest place of all and there
to abide, there to dwell, there to remain,
there to live and have my being, there
to meet with you, there to receive instruction
encouragement, strength all that's needed to be an
apostolic people this is your heart and this
is your faith I just ask you to
follow me in simple words Heavenly Father in
Jesus holy name I believe your word I
believe your provision you have not called us
to apostolic challenge without providing an apostolic fulfillment,
out of your power from the place of
your presence the holiest place of all from
within the veil in the heavenly sanctuary and
right now in Jesus name by the power
of his blood and not my own virtue
I enter into that place and before your
presence that you might meet with me there,
continually help me to be ever conscious of
living from that place, the place of rest
that you have prepared for those who love
you thank you Jesus just let's enjoy the
Lord for a moment, just quietly dispense a
peace that has come into your spirit hallelujah
God hasn't called us to anxiety and breaking
our heads and learning faith as a technique
and a method he's called us to a
relationship to a devotion to a God who
is lovely who has done so much for
us as even to invite us to grow
with him in his high priestly place thank
you Lord, we love you for that tonight
Jesus and Lord from that place we intend
to become fathers mothers, husbands and wives servants
of the most high God there we intend
to receive our wisdom and our instruction there
we believe to receive our strength all that
is needful out of your presence thank you
Lord for this holy invitation we love you
we meet you there Jesus, teach us to
dwell to wait upon your presence there thank
you for the rest for the peace, may
your great acts at the conclusion of the
age my God, issue from that place to
you be all praise and glory and honor
we love you Lord and we thank you